As an IT administrator, you may have come across a situation in which you need to delete a Windows NTFS hard link (mklink /H) while the original is in use. This can be a tricky situation to deal with, as the hard link cannot be deleted while it is in use. In this article, we’ll look at how to delete a Windows NTFS hard link while the original is in use.
The first step in dealing with this situation is to identify the hard link that needs to be deleted. The hard link can be identified using the command line utility, mklink. This utility is available with Windows 7 and higher and can be used to create, view, and delete hard links. To view the hard link, open the command prompt and type ‘mklink /D
Once the hard link is identified, the next step is to delete it. To do this, use the command ‘fsutil hardlink delete
In some cases, the original file may be in use by another process, which prevents you from deleting the hard link. In this case, you can use the command ‘handle’ to identify which process is using the file. This command will list all the processes that are using the file. Once the process is identified, you can terminate it using the ‘taskkill’ command. This will allow you to delete the hard link.
It is also possible to delete a hard link while the original is open. To do this, you can use the ‘unlink’ command. This command will delete the hard link, but will not delete the original file. The original file will remain open, but the hard link will be removed.
In some cases, you may need to delete a hard link while the original is in use. In this case, you can use the command ‘fsutil hardlink delete
As an IT administrator, it is important to know how to delete a Windows NTFS hard link while the original is in use. This can be a tricky situation to deal with, as the hard link cannot be deleted while it is in use. However, by using the commands described above, you can safely delete the hard link while the original is in use.
